


Marginalia

by EvilMuffins



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Akekita Week, Ficlet Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27273415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/pseuds/EvilMuffins
Summary: Yusuke’s heart beat beneath Akechi’s ear, and it continued to beat in spite of Akechi’s proximity. To think that Akechi loved someone, and yet that person continued to live and breathe. A person with a beating heart loved him back.---'Marginalia are marks made in the margins of a book or other document. They may be scribbles, comments, etc.'A collection of short fics created for Akekita week 2020.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kitagawa Yusuke
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27
Collections: Akekita Week





	1. Autumn

_God_ , when was the last time he had dusted? Appearances were everything in Akechi’s world and while the generously sized bookshelf situated up against the far wall of his living room made for an appropriate backdrop for remote TV interviews, the books themselves weren’t partaken of all that often.

Pulling out at random a copy of the Codex Seraphinianus, Akechi brushed off the dust before leafing through until something caused him to pause halfway through. Lodged between the incomprehensible text lay a single dried up leaf, pressed flat between the pages.

Stomach clenching, Akechi shut the book with a snap, shoving it back onto the shelf with too much haste to even bother making certain the spine faced upright.

Remembering with no shortage of bitterness why he no longer enjoyed looking through his books, Akechi dropped himself onto the couch, grabbing for the remote instead. Just as his finger hovered over the power button, a knock came at the door.

Tossing the remote down onto the couch cushion in defeat, Akechi made his way to the door, opening it wide without bothering to check the peep-hole.

“There is a buzzer, you know.”

“Indeed,” Yusuke said, stepping through the threshold and removing his shoes. “But I prefer the tactile sensation of knocking. It’s more personal, wouldn’t you say?”

Yusuke peered at Akechi quizzically as if the question weren’t meant to have been rhetorical.

“You can just come in next time. I gave you the key for a reason,” Akechi informed him, crossing his arms, suddenly uncertain what to do with them. On TV, he always knew the perfect gesture to make in order to drive home whatever pleasantry he was spouting. What was it about Yusuke that made him feel as if he were being run through an x-ray machine, his very soul laid bare like a creature vivisected.

“And what reason would that be?” Yusuke asked, slipping off his jacket and hanging it carefully on the hook beside Akechi’s, one that was always left bare especially for him.

If anyone else had asked the same, Akechi might have thought they were flirting. “Because we’re- It’s because I enjoy your company, if you have to know.”

“I should hope so,” Yusuke replied, trailing off as something on the bookshelf caught his attention. “We are dating, after all…”

Before Akechi could do anything to stop him, Yusuke plucked the upside-down book off the shelf. A single leaf fluttered to the floor.

“Ah, my apologies.” Yusuke bent to retrieve it.

“Don’t!” Akechi snapped, diving for the leaf before Yusuke could touch it. The moment he felt the crunch between his fist, Akechi cringed. Not only for what the tiny piece of sidewalk debris had represented to him, but for how he had treated Yusuke just then. “Damn. I’m sorry, Yusuke. You can go back home for today, if you want. Or go over to Leblanc or something. Just… You don’t need to stay here if I’m making you uncomfortable.”

Yusuke shook his head, making his way calmly toward the couch. “It’s quite alright. I know you’ve been working on yourself and I’m proud of you.”

Akechi sat down beside him, still scowling at the crumpled mess in his hand. “Don’t be.”

“It’s a beautiful color,” Yusuke commented, regarding Akechi’s palm thoughtfully.

“It’s brown,” Akechi said flatly.

Yusuke countered, “A rich earth-tone.”

“Alright, sure.” Akechi decided to trust in Yusuke’s appraisal, as he often did. If only he could see the same beauty in the world as his boyfriend did.

Letting his shoulder lean against Akechi’s, Yusuke shifted so that the keyring at his side gave a wistful jingle. “I keep a locker full of my mother’s things at the train station. A long-term rental, so as Madarame wouldn’t discover them and berate me for being sentimental.”

Was this Yusuke’s way of getting Akechi to open up about his own little treasure? Probably.

Resigned, Akechi took the bait. Yusuke’s shoulder—although bony--was warm, drawing the truth from him. “My mom found it while we were on a walk at the park one day. That’s all.”

Yusuke grew quiet, considering this for a moment. Generally, the only time Akechi had known him to stop talking was when mulling over how best to execute a sudden bought of inspiration. “The weather is very clement today. I know that it wouldn’t be nearly the same, but I hope that you would humor me in taking a walk outside and collecting some of the Autumn foliage together. There’s a collage I’ve been working on and I think that some pressed leaves would be just the thing. What do you say?”

Akechi couldn’t help but smile as Yusuke offered his hand, hoisting him up off the couch of and out of his recollections of the past.

“I think that I would like that very much.”


	2. Ice

Observing the sky from Yusuke’s current position would have been beautiful, save for the stabbing pain shooting all the way down his leg.

The snow fell softly all around him, and Yusuke considered lying there for another moment. He certainly wasn’t dying, or at least he didn’t think so.

Perhaps he had hit his head. Closing his eyes for just a moment should set things right.

Just a moment…

A single moment in time, meaningless in the scheme of things, although he might take some artistic inspiration from it once he managed to get back home.

“…Kitagawa?”

A voice floated down to him, as if carried by the snowflakes.

“Shit…”

_Akechi?_

Perhaps he had thought that Yusuke couldn’t hear him, because he had never heard Akechi use language like that while on TV, or at any of their strategy meetings for that matter.

Akechi knelt beside him, gripping Yusuke’s shoulder and giving it an urgent shake. “Hey, can you hear me?”

“Of course,” Yusuke replied, as if lying in the middle of the sidewalk in the snow was completely usual.

“So would you mind telling me what happened?” Akechi asked, and Yusuke thought that he could detect genuine concern in his eyes. Although, likely having hit his head, perhaps Yusuke was only seeing what he wanted to.

“I seemed to have slipped on the ice on my way home from the station,” Yusuke explained mildly. “And while I wished to continue along on my way following the spill, my leg concocted a different agenda.”

Akechi frowned, grip on Yusuke’s shoulder tightening, and if he weren’t the person who had attempted to murder Akira in cold blood, Yusuke might have thought that he felt some sliver of compassion for him. “Do you think you could stand if I help you up? Or do you need me to call for an ambulance?”

Experimentally, Yusuke worked his way into sitting upright, the wet snow soaking through his mittens as he braced himself on the concrete. The pain, while intense, was nothing worse than he had experienced during their last journey into the Metaverse.

“Yes.”

Akechi sighed, reaching toward his pocket preemptively for his phone. “’ _Yes’_ to which?”

“Yes, I do believe that I could stand, now that I’ve had some time to recover my composure.”

“Alright, then.” Removing his hand from his pocket, Akechi instead placed it underneath Yusuke’s arm, hoisting him upward.

Despite the pain, Yusuke found his mind more intrigued by the fact that Akechi’s arms were surprisingly strong, despite Yusuke never having witnessed him lifting anything heavier than a coffee cup in his presence.

“Tell me,” Yusuke inquired, once he was fully upright, leaning against Akechi’s side. His dry pea coat warm and comforting, despite the fact that Yusuke’s own slush-soaked sleeves would soon begin seeping in. “What are your hobbies, if you don’t mind my asking? Besides the detective work, of course.”

Akechi blinked, incredulous. Had it been the assertion his detective work was a mere hobby? Because certainly his career lay more in his celebrity than anything else.

“Hm… Food blogging, I guess?” Akechi answered as they shambled down the sidewalk together. “I do some indoor rock climbing now and then, when I find the time.”

“Impressive.” Yusuke nodded sagely. “I have to admit that I’m far from athletic myself.”

"You don't say..."

The two continued on like that for a time, Yusuke ignoring the pain in his leg and Akechi awkwardly supporting him, posture stiff, as unused to human contact as Yusuke himself was.

Finally, Akechi broke the silence, “Your dorm is this way… isn’t it?”

“Hmm?” Yusuke paused for a moment, causing Akechi to nearly trip himself on the icy sidewalk. “No. In fact, it’s in the complete opposite direction.”

Akechi took a very deep breath.

* * *

“Here,” Akechi said, thrusting the sandwich baggie filled with ice in Yusuke’s direction before perching himself on the arm of his couch.

While the rest of Yusuke’s dorm room was a chaotic maelstrom of art supplies and paint splotches, thankfully his kitchenette area was clear. Likely, due to lack of use. After getting Yusuke settled onto the couch with his feet up, a make-shift icepack hadn’t been hard for Akechi to prepare.

Yusuke cringed as he placed the ice onto his thigh.

“Too cold?” Akechi asked, as if he could somehow control the temperature of ice. He wasn’t Fox.

“No…” Yusuke replied thoughtfully, prodding at the icepack. “It’s curious, but I don’t feel the cold in the same as I used to before awakening to my Persona.”

“That’s good, at least.” Could Yusuke have succumb to hypothermia if Akechi had left him laying there, unable to feel the dangerous temperatures as they continued to drop? “By the way…”

“Yes?” Yusuke shifted and the icepack slid from his leg onto the floor.

Bending to reach it for him, Akechi moved at same time Yusuke did, their fingers brushing. Neither of them one to back down from a challenge, the bag tore open as they tugged it from opposite directions. A wet puddle spread across the carpet.

Managing to grasp a single half-melted ice cube, Akechi pressed it to Yusuke’s thigh, unable to suppress the shiver as he held it there, freezing in his palm.

Yusuke tensed under his touch.

“What were you saying?”

Akechi shook his head dismissively. “Nothing... It’s just that, isn’t it strange how something so potentially dangerous as ice can heal as well?”

The tiny chunk melted between his fingers, leaving his hand to rest on Yusuke’s injured thigh, damp and cold.


	3. Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanahaki AU

Goro Akechi had been navigating the Metaverse ever since the age of fourteen. It was shortly thereafter that he had begun to keep detailed notes on his daily schedule- every case, every TV appearance, every dreaded meeting with Shido. Keeping the pocket-sized date book close at hand helped him to feel as if he were in control of his life in some pathetically minute way. And yet, Akechi hadn’t kept track of his multitude trips into the Metaverse. The first had been an accident, of course. A small, scared, lonely child playing in a place that he shouldn’t, all too soon provoking Shadows like a little boy poking at snakes with a stick. After that, there came Shido, followed by vicious afternoons of blowing off steam after playing the part of honor student in school each and every day.

One hundred times? Two hundred? A thousand?

An all-consuming hunger, throat-clenching fear, desires that he was not yet ready to admit to… Akechi had thought that he had been hit with each and every spell that the Shadows had to offer, and he had survived it all. Alone.

So why this? Why _now_?

“Crow? Are you feeling quite alright?”

The look of concern on Yusuke’s face burned through Akechi more than the pressure in his lungs.

Akechi smiled brightly. “The ride’s a little bumpier than usual today, don’t you think? Must be Joker’s driving.”

“Hmm?” Yusuke hummed, craning his neck to look over at Akira at the helm of the Monabus. “I thought that the ride was fairly smooth so far, save for the rude interruptions by the Shadows.”

“Eh, Crow could be right,” Futaba teased. “Joker _did_ only have one cup of coffee this morning. It’s like chugging a just a basic potion when your HP gauge is low enough for a Hyper Potion or two.”

Whatever Akira quipped in response was lost to Akechi as his body shuddered with another violent coughing fit. His lungs felt as if they were being torn apart from the inside, for all the world like a tiny Shadow had slithered inside of them, spreading out tendrils between the alveoli.

Vaguely, he felt his elbow connect with Yusuke’s arm. The bus really hadn’t been made for eight. He didn’t belong there, and whatever cognition had turned their teammate from a cat into bus, also clearly rejected his use of the space.

“Have you seen a doctor about that?” Yusuke pressed in concern, rubbing at his arm. “Because Joker knows of an exemplary one right around the corner from LeBlanc. I heard that she even- What is all of that?”

_Shit…_

Akechi looked down at his sleeve, where a multitude of scarlet flower petals had stuck. He hadn’t gotten his handkerchief out in time, he thought, refusing to admit to himself that he hadn’t remembered which pocket he had stuffed it in following the last fit he had suffered. Everything was fuzzy, and his brain felt as foggy as the inside of his chest.

“Would you look at that?” Akechi mused, voice wavering in a way he hoped that no one would pick up on. “That Narcissus we ran into earlier must have shed on me…”

As Akechi spoke, Yusuke rummaged in the bag he kept underneath the seat. As far as Akechi knew, it only contained art supplies to be used on the off chance that ‘inspiration struck’.

Yusuke pressed something into Akechi’s hand, some of the petals brushing off on him in the process. “Here. Phantom Wafers. They’re really quite satisfying, and dare I say delicious, depending on how long ago your last meal may have been.”

“Thank you,” Akechi said genuinely, despite not having an appetite at the moment. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen reaching his brain, but Akechi suspected no ulterior motives. Yusuke simply wished to ease his pain and Akechi was thankful for that in a way that he would prefer not to overthink.

* * *

 _It is because your love is not requited,_ Robin had explained when the symptoms had first begun to manifest the previous week. Apparently, it was something he had caught from the collective consciousness and their piteous penchant for sentimentality.

Loki had merely cackled in devious glee at his host’s predicament.

 _Love_? The word tasted like spoilt milk in the back of Akechi’s throat. For whom? _Joker?_ His feelings toward that particular smug asshole ranged from distain at best to vitriolic hatred, with little in between.

Robin, as he often was, was mistaken.

The only person Akechi had ever loved in any capacity was his mother, and where had that ever gotten him?

Akechi’s chest clenched again and a wave of cold panic flooded over him. He had never had two attacks back to back like this. Any thoughts he may have had about the condition progressing were superseded by the more immediate issue of his lungs refusing to take in air.

Something warm pressed against his back. A hand.

“He alright?” Distantly, Akechi could hear Ryuji from the booth behind him.

_I must sound like absolute shit if even he’s worried…_

“I am… not certain.” A deeper voice from right beside him. Yusuke.

The hand began to rub circles over the back of Akechi’s shoulders, bony but also broad and warm from the cup of coffee it had held seconds earlier.

Akechi became aware of the others standing from their seats at the booths and stools, fussing over him as the petals spilled from his lips.

There was no one in this world or the other that Akechi loved, and this sentiment was rightly returned. But the fingers on his back held the intricate motions of an artist, filling Akechi’s mind in vain with some nebulous emotion, providing a momentary distraction from the pain as he untangled his heart, plucking the threads of his thoughts apart like petals from a stem.


	4. Birds of a Feather

“They fly so quickly…” Akechi mused, gazing upward. “How would you even capture something like that?”

Yusuke leaned up on his elbows, tearing his eyes away from the sky in order to fix his boyfriend with a perplexed expression. “…With a net perhaps?”

Akechi sighed, rolling his eyes as the flock of crows passed above them. “I meant on paper, or a canvas. Whichever one you were using that day.”

He turned his head to look at Yusuke, dark eyes sparkling under the sun. The concrete rooftop of their apartment building might not have been the most comfortable place to lay down, but it had been Yusuke’s idea and Yusuke’s ideas often led to something oddly whimsical. Whimsy was… good, actually. Compared to everything that Akechi had been through up until he had began dating Yusuke, some irreverence every now and again was downright relaxing.

“It’s not like you to muse over such things,” Yusuke responded.

Akechi cocked a brow. “Are you saying that I’m unobservant?”

“Well, in a way, yes,” Yusuke wasted no time in giving his (rather blunt) answer.

“Need I remind you that I used to be a detective,” Akechi said pleasantly, readjusting the pillow they had brought up from the couch, a seam popping in the process.

“And need I remind you that you never noticed that all eight of us were on to your scheming the entire time.”

“True,” Akechi conceded.

Akechi settled back down, resting his head against Yusuke’s chest. Yusuke wrapped an arm around him, almost automatically, as if it were as natural to him as holding a brush.

Yusuke’s heart beat beneath Akechi’s ear, and it _continued_ to beat in spite of Akechi’s proximity. To think that Akechi loved someone, and yet that person continued to live and breathe. A person with a beating heart loved him back.

Somehow the entire situation seemed more unbelievable than their forays into the Metaverse as teens so many years ago.

“Hey,” Akechi broke the silence, far more comfortable than he deserved. “Have you ever had dreams about flying?”

“Hmm.” Yusuke considered the question for a moment, taking a simple question far too seriously. Not that Akechi didn’t do the same when presented with such matters. “I can’t say that I recall.”

Akechi snorted softly. “Really? I thought that artists always have symbolic dreams like that.”

“Typically, I’d often fall prey to nightmares. The subject matter often revolved around the concept of failure more often than not. Disappointing my sen- Madarame, I mean. Or crowds booing me while I was painting on a grand stage.”

“And now?” Akechi asked, dreading the answer. Yusuke slept so calm and still beside him every night that now and again, in the pre-dawn hours, Akechi would sit up, studying Yusuke captiously under eerie green glow of the odd little clock that Yusuke kept on his night-table. Modeled after the _Persistence of Memory_ , it appeared to melt off its stand. Akechi would strain his eyes, watching for signs of life, relief flooding him when Yusuke would let out a gentle snore or twitch his lip.

“No matter what may transpire in my dreams these days, I know that you are there beside me and that brings me great comfort.”

Akechi closed his eyes. He had discovered recently that not every statement required a response, or at least not a verbal one. Instead, he found Yusuke’s hand, lacing their fingers as he soaked in the warm spring breeze.


End file.
